I've experimented
with a lot of permanent bed sizes
and shapes over the past few years, and the four by four square
advocated by square foot gardening is one of
my least favorite formats. I like to be able to weed and plant
and harvest
sitting down, but I can't reach the center of a four foot bed without
either leaning on the bed or standing up and bending over --- hard on
the
back. My favorite beds are three feet wide but quite long.
In fact,
the best bed shape for me seems to be a long row that I can work my way
down it, never turning a corner, pushing the wheelbarrow ahead of me as
I go.

Which
brings me to the next flaw in Mel Bartholomew's garden design ---
the aisles. In order to fit his
garden into 20% of the space used by a traditional garden, Bartholomew
lays down 12
inch lumber and walks on this one foot wide path. I started out
with
aisles that are two feet wide, and I can barely fit my wheelbarrow down
them, often harm plants on
the ends of beds when turning corners, and can't get the lawnmower
through
some of the aisles at all. As with permanent bed widths, three
feet seems to be the magic number that keeps me from feeling cramped,
with four or five foot aisles along
main thoroughfares allowing for easier hauling.
Granted, my method uses more space than Bartholomew's, but I suspect it
saves time since I don't have to prop back up the plants I break when I
lose my balance and fall into the bed.

Despite
being very critical of square foot gardening, I do think it has a
place. If you live in a city and have only
a tiny bit of space out front but the neighbors would yell
if you put in a traditional vegetable garden, the formal lines of
square foot gardening might fit the bill. If you work forty hours
a week and always plant a huge rambling garden, only to see it
disappear into weeds in July when you run out of time, it might be best
to scale back to a smaller garden like Bartholomew's (but, perhaps,
laid out in a more ergonomic fashion.) On the other hand, if
you're a
homesteader with lots of land and a wish to grow most of your own food,
square foot gardening probably doesn't have much for you.

(All of the images on
this page are official square foot gardens from the Square Foot
Gardening Foundation. I'm actually a bit shocked that these
are
the best images they have to offer.)

Want to give your garden the time it
really deserves? Learn to make a living in a few hours a week
using our microbusiness ebook.

This post is part of our Square Foot Gardening lunchtime series.
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is it just me or do the plants both look sickly and cramped?
I also think 4ft is a bad design, but that is probably because I usually plant along fences, I hate to mow along fences and I need open lawn for the dog so the edges of the yard are the best place for planting. in that format, I like 2-3ft x ~30ft (3 garden ties long).

I am currently turning my large garden (30'x60') into a raised bed garden following Mel's book. I have 12 beds that are 4'x16' and are 11" high. Because I can pack more into the beds, I am only using the one garden this year. I can grow things like potatoes in half the space of the traditional layout. Yes, it's expensive to convert to square foot gardening, but I am so optimistic that I have started a CSA this year and am offering 4 half-shares. I will also have enough vegetables for us to put up. I think it's worth it!

I love hearing both pros and cons --- I was hoping people would come out of the woodwork with their own experiences.

Tracy, I'm so impressed by your CSA! You'll have to let me know how it goes (and how you like the square foot beds). We ran a small CSA one year, but then decided that we'd rather have the extra food in our freezer that winter rather than the cash in our wallet. But I could easily have seen us go the other way.

Anonymous --- I agree that the plants look really sad. If you go to the site, you'll notice that I picked the best pictures there, not the worst. I'd love to see other people send me to some square foot gardening pictures that look a bit better. Your bed layout sounds perfect --- I actually feel like three feet is too wide sometimes.

Great post. I have 8 beds in which I do sq. foot gardening ... they're 3x3 feet each. Like 'em, but don't love. Also have some plain ol' rows. I'm still new to this, but it's been nice to have both options to help me figure out what plants do best where.

I've worked in my garden and a community garden for a few years. I tried the square foot method but I've come to the same conclusions you've come to.

It is hard to work deeply inside the 4x4 squares if you're sitting down. It's also hard to bring in materials to the area once it's established.

If the farmers are working in a very constrained space it certainly makes sense, but I would rather dig my walking rows as you've described than spend so much money making paths from wooden planks, mulch or pavers. I tried using brick as rows and that ended up with me weeding the rows more than the garden beds. Large pavers worked okay when I could get them for free, but they are expensive once you start a large garden intended to provide the majority of your food sources.

In some senses it's a shame as I liked the sort of OCD attention to every single square of plants but as I scaled up I've realized it's just not practical. Thank you for the precise measurements(and the easier way of measuring by shovel handle size) as I'll be using this as a guide on my planting this year. At least then I'll be able to mow the rows and transport items in and out of the garden more readily.

I'll also be glad to just mark one section as a section of corn rather than keeping track of every single square.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes to garden sitting down. I know what you mean about the OCD attention to each square --- I think I tend to get into that mindset when I weed even in my huge garden.

I have been SFGing now for 12 years. I think your assessment of the SFG is way off. These pictures dont even beging to do any justice to what a SFG is capable of, and there are a lot more pictures-very good pictures-of what a typical SFG looks like on the site than what you have posted. If you would like to see a real SFG in action, let me know and I will direct you to what I do with about 200 pictures of proof. The single row traditional method is a think of the past-for home gardeners that is. For farmers, its great. There is simply too much waste of land, water, and other resources to have one of those old gardens. And, I have never met anyone who loves to weed.

I really didn't cherry pick bad images for this post --- the ones I included were the best I could find on that website at the time. I'd be glad to see some better images. You might be interested in the square foot gardening rebuttal by one of our readers.

If you read further on our blog, you'll find that I'm not advocating typical row gardening and that I think intensive gardening has a lot of advantages in the home garden. However, square foot gardening also has a lot of disadvantages that can be overcome by less trendy types of intensive gardening.

well...i guessed I missed it then. Thats one of the bad things about the internet sometimes. Its very easy to miss things when your not talking to someone face to face and instead talk to them through blog posts and all of that stuff....the pictures from NY were fantastic....now, thats a SFG!